Major League Baseball 2K13 is an offensively recycled product and an embarrassment to sports video games. In my five years as Kotaku's sports writer, I've spent a good deal of time in comments defending the genre, and those who make its games, from the worn-out slur that annual sports titles are nothing but reskinned roster updates. Yet that is exactly what MLB 2K13 is, and its existence is forever an argumentative trump card to any advocacy I can make for sports, whether for a series that did meaningfully improve itself—like Madden NFL 13—or for a consistently excellent title that made largely cosmetic upgrades, such as NBA 2K13.
MLB 2K13 shows so little effort as to be unworthy of the basic dignity of a full review. The Xbox 360's baseball fans, however, do deserve to have a condemnation put on the record, in their name, because MLB 2K13 is nothing but a fuck-you to that constituency. For the past four years, Take-Two Interactive has peddled its poor-me bullshit over this license—recklessly negotiated by a corrupt regime preceding the current one—rather than taking ownership of its responsibilities and giving the MLB series the leadership and resources it so badly needed. One would think that, finally freed of the contractual requirement to deliver an ugly, uninspired, glitch-filled game year after money-losing year, a management that professes to care so much about publishing only high quality brands, and not rushing them into annual production, would have the character to simply walk away from this mistake, not reanimate its corpse.
That's what we have here in MLB 2K13. Do you want specifics about the game? Well, which creative work should I recycle, the review I wrote about MLB 2K12, or the one about MLB 2K11? The complaints I've had with both are still on full display. From comically sped-up animations to eye-twitching framerate drops on every swing, to something as nitpicky as the deformed numerals and nametapes on the back of every uniform shirt—it boggles my mind how that could be so difficult to reproduce—it's all still in here. So is my favorite glitch. I simulated to the end of a World Series and yep, right on schedule, a batter from the losing team walks up to the plate and photobombs the winner's celebration. You know everything about this game is, at best, reconditioned from the previous year as soon as you boot up the game. Its loading screen features audio of fans chanting "M-V-P" at Tampa Bay's David Price, who did not win that award. It's audio left over from last year's introduction screen whose cover star, Detroit's Justin Verlander, did.
Developer: 2K Sports/Visual Concepts
Platforms: PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 (reviewed)
Released: March 5.
Type of game: Sports simulation.
What I played: I saw all I needed to see in two hours.
My Two Favorite Things
My Two Least-Favorite Things
Made-to-Order-Back-of-Box-Quote
No, this is not literally MLB 2K12. There are some minor differences. For example, online leagues are no more. Yep, they were taken right out of the game, which doesn't bode well for the online support this game will get, either. Not that MLB 2K12 was a model of post-release support, receiving only one patch in a plain tip-off that 2K Sports was hell-yes washing its hands of the series. What else? Yeah, the Houston Astros, tied for the worst team rating in the game, will now play in the AL West, if you dig franchises with one pennant in a 50-year history rebooting themselves in another league. And the Million Dollar/Perfect Game/Whatever-the-hell-it's-called now Challenge, whose grand prize winner in fact gets a quarter of a million dollars, now features rules prohibiting players from stocking the opposing team with terrible hitters to better their chances at throwing a perfect game. That should be good news, but we won't know if the exploit allowing such roster manipulation was corrected until the contest begins on April 1.
Major League Baseball itself also deserves blame for MLB 2K13, and not just for buck-stops-here reasons because its name is on the box. Take-Two Interactive may have signed an outrageously priced contract back in 2005, but baseball had absolutely no long-term vision for the license either, despite clear signals sent years ago that it would have no dancing partner on the Xbox 360 under any normal deal in 2013. This game was announced, by surprise, in January, and is plainly the product of Major League Baseball reckoning with the embarrassment of missing a year on the Xbox 360 and the fact it had zero leverage in avoiding it.
The structure of Take-Two's semi-exclusive license to make MLB video games on consoles left the big leagues with no way to engage a new developer in enough time to put a simulation product on shelves this year. I suppose MLB and the MLB Players' Association could have renegotiated their arrangements with Take-Two to let in another publisher to build something—which would require modeling hundreds of players' liknesses and at least six new stadiums—for release after the pact expired in 2012. That, presumably, would have required a large cash giveback to 2K Sports. Otherwise, what meaning does an exclusive license have, and why would anyone have paid so much for one, incurring losses estimated at $30 million a year.
As much as I hate reviewing a business plan, rather than a video game, that is all you are buying if you choose to pay for a new copy of MLB 2K13. You will be helping to reward 2K Sports with the first ever profitable year it will see from this license after nearly a decade spent mismanaging it, and you are telling the Major Leagues that not only can they slap their logo on any piece of crap and everyone will still buy it, but also that their poor stewardship of a multimillion-dollar license doesn't matter either. You are endorsing MLB Advanced Media's delusion that its video game product is as valuable as the NFL's. It is not. That attitude created this awful mess in 2005, when Take-Two's newly constituted 2K Games popped its suspenders and decided it would punch back at Madden and EA Sports by paying a ton of money to kill MVP Baseball, as revenge for the loss of the sainted NFL 2K5.
I'm embarrassed to reread my publication history on this game prior to last season's release. I have, on two different occasions, driven 1,000 miles round trip to 2K Sports headquarters to preview this series. Another time, they flew to me in Oregon to show it off. I wrote neat things about camera angles in different stadiums, providing not only this game with a new presentational feature, but also inspiring its nominal competitor to include it as well. I wrote a bunch of praise for the regular joes who won a million bucks playing this game, or who fell agonizingly short. Despite the rest of the game being so painful to even watch, its pitching system is still the most brilliant and engaging means of handling the task that anyone's ever conceived, No other publication or writer has given this series more benefit of the doubt, so when I say this game is shit, it should hurt.
It does. But I'll learn from it.
Kotaku's twice weekly roundup of the best discounts, combinations, offers and incentives in video gaming is brought to you by Dealzon.
GameFly expired their 20% off coupon for last Tuesday's release SimCity and the upcoming June 25 release of Company of Heroes 2. Thankfully, it still applies to March of the Eagles ($15.99), and more notably, it also stacks with select Call of Duty games 50% off, leading to even greater savings. Available titles listed below:
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is $23.99 (list $60)
• Call of Duty: Black Ops is $15.99 (list $40)
• Call of Duty: World at War is $7.99 (list $20)
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is $7.99 (next best $20)
• Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is $7.99 (list $20)
Green Man Gaming
• Last Tuesday's release Tomb Raider is $40 (next best $50)
• Last Tuesday's release The Sims 3: University Lifeis $32.00 from Green Man Gaming. (next best is $40)
• Last Wednesday's release Dollar Dash is $8 (list $10)
• Mar. 12 release Sniper Ghost Warrior 2 is $24 (list $30)
• Mar. 26 release Battlefield 3: End Game (PC DLC) is $12 (list $15)
• Apr. 23 release Dead Island Riptide is $32 (list $40)
• Dead Space 3 is $48 (next best $60)
• Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad Digital Deluxe Edition is $9.99 (next best $50)
• War Of The Roses is $4.99 (next best $20)
• Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad is $4 (next best $20)
GameStop
• Crysis 3 is $39.99 (Origin is $42, elsewhere $60)
• Battlefield 3 Premium Service is $24.99 (next best $50)
Steam
• Apr. 9 release Age of Empires II HD is $17.99 (list $20)
• Max Payne 3 is $13.59 (list $40). Other Max Payne 3 DLCs are also 66% off.
• ArmA 2: Combined Operations is $12.49 (next best $25)
• Wizardry Online - Adventure Kit is $9.99 from Steam. List price is $20.
Origin
• Crysis 3 Digital Deluxe is $55.99, free ship (list $80)
• Mass Effect Trilogy is $25 (next best $60)
• Mass Effect 3: Digital Deluxe Edition is $15 (list $30)
• Mass Effect 3 is $10 (list $20)
• Mass Effect 2 is $10 (list $20)
• Mass Effect is $7 (list $15)
Amazon
• Enormous .EMU Pack (10 downloads) is $9.99 (separately $92)
• Ticket to Ride Complete Pack (5 downloads) is $6.49 (list $25)
NewEgg
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 (PC) is $29.99, free ship (next best $48)
• Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty (PC or Mac) is $18.99 (list $40)
GOG.com has a Super Strategy Weekend sale with 50% Off 11 DRM-free PC titles. They also have Waking Mars for $4.99 (list $10).
GamersGate has a Sword of the Stars weekend sale with 75% off the game and expansion packs, as well as NiGHTS into Dreams HD for $5 (next best $10).
Ubisoft
• Assassin's Creed 3 Deluxe Edition is $55.99 (list $80)
• Far Cry 3 Deluxe Edition is $41.99 (next best is $48)
• Far Cry 3 is $34.99 (next best is $50)
• Assassin's Creed 3 is $34.99 (next best is $50)
• Assassin's Creed 3 Season Pass is $20.99 (list $30)
• The Humble Bundle with Android 5 lets you pay what you want for 6 DRM-free games compatible with Android, PC, Mac, and Linux.
• BundleStars.com's Fire and Ice bundle includes 10 PC download games from indie developers for $4.92 at time of writing. Normally you'd pay $130 for these games separately. If you only pay $1.26, you'll still get the first two games on the list - Tiny Troopers and Airport Control Simulator. [Dealzon]
Kmart has all the games below with a $15 Gaming Coupon bonus, elsewhere near full price with no bonuses.
• Last Tuesday's release Tomb Raider (PS3, 360) is $59.99 free ship + bonus
• Last Tuesday's release MLB 2K13 (360, PS3) is $59.99, free ship free ship + bonus
• Last Tuesday's release MLB 13 The Show (PS3) is $59.99 free ship + bonus
NewEgg
• Ni no Kuni: Wrath Of The White Witch (PS3) is $50.99, free ship (next best $55)
• Portal 2 (360, PS3) is $17.99, free ship (next best $23)
• Tekken 6 / Soul Calibur 4 Bundle (360) is $16.99, free ship (next best $20)
GameStop
• Crysis 3 (360, PS3) is $39.99 (Amazon is price matching. Origin is $42, elsewhere $60)
• Last Tuesday's release Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 (360, PS3) is $54.99, free ship (elsewhere $60)
• Red Faction Armageddon (360, PS3) is $5.99 with $3.49 shipping (next best $14)
Amazon
• NBA 2K13 (Wii U) is $39.98, free ship (next best $46)
• XCOM Enemy Unknown (PS3) is $37.40, free ship (next best $40)
• Madden NFL 13 (Wii U) is $34.99, free ship (next best $39)
• NCAA Football 13 (PS3) is $27.64 with $3.99 shipping (next best $54)
• Madden NFL 13 (PS3) is $24.57 with $3.99 shipping (next best $56)
Best Buy
• Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified (Vita) is $34.99, free ship (Amazon is price matching, elsewhere $50)
• Little Big Planet (Vita) is $29.99, free ship (Amazon is price matching, elsewhere $40)
• Uncharted: Golden Abyss (Vita) is $29.99, free ship (Amazon is price matching, elsewhere $38)
• Playstation All Stars Battle Royale (Vita) is $29.99, free ship (next best $35)
• Assassins Creed 3: Liberation (Vita) is $29.99, free ship (Amazon is price matching, elsewhere $34 and up)
• Xbox 360 Live 12-Month Gold Membership Card is $31.49, free ship from NewEgg. Next best is $35. [Dealzon]
• Xbox 360 Live 3 Months Online Code is $19.99, free ship from NewEgg. List price is $25. [Dealzon]
• Xbox 360 Live 1200 Points Online Code is $12.74, free ship from NewEgg. List price is $15. [Dealzon]
• Wii U Console 8GB Basic Set is $299.99, free ship and comes with a $20 gift card from Best Buy. [Dealzon]
• Sony PlayStation 3 40GB Console (Refurbished) is $229.99 + $9.49 shipping from GameStop and comes with 5 games, including Call of Duty: Black Ops and Duke Nukem Forever. List is $261. [Dealzon]
• Nintendo Wii Console (Pre-owned) with Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort is $79.99, free ship from CowBoom. Normally $200 in new condition. [Dealzon]
• Alienware TactX Gaming Keyboard is $67.99, free ship from Dell Home. New low by $2. Next best is $78. [Dealzon]
• Xbox 360 Wireless Controller for Windows PC is $39.99, free ship from NewEgg. Next best is $45. [Dealzon]
• PS3 DualShock 3 Wireless Controller Black is $36.99, free ship from NewEgg. Next best is $45. [Dealzon]
• Asus 27-inch VG278H 2ms 3D LED Monitor is $519.99, free ship from NewEgg. New low by $30. Next best is $550. [Dealzon]
• AOC 27-inch E2752VH 2ms LED Monitor is $189.99, free ship from Best Buy. New low by $10. Next best is $200. [Dealzon]
• Samsung 20-inch S20B350H 2ms LED Monitor (Refurbished) is $89.99, free ship from Rakuten. Next best is $100. [Dealzon]
• HP Envy dv7t-7300 17.3-inch laptop with Quad Core i7-3630QM, 1080p display, GeForce GT 650M 2GB, Blu-ray, and Windows 8 is $959.99 with $9.99 shipping from HP. New low by $40. List price is $1,200.
• HP Envy dv6t-7300 Quad Edition laptop with 1080p display, Quad Core i7-3630QM, GeForce GT 650M is $879.99 with $9.99 shipping from HP. New low by $20. List price is $1,100.
• Alienware Aurora desktop with Dual AMD Radeon HD 7870 2GB graphics cards, Quad Core i7-3820 Overclocked 4.2GHz processor, 16GB RAM, and 3TB HDD is $1,799 from Dell Home. List price is $2,024.
always, smart gamers can find values any day of the week, so if you've run across a deal, share it with us in the comments.
Later this afternoon, Lucy Bradshaw, the general manager of SimCity maker Maxis, is going to take over the studio's official account to answer questions from gamers who, four days after the game's release, are still unable to play the thing they purchased. She's already given a preview answer to the question most of them likely have: Why can't this game simply be played offline?
The question has been answered before, but Bradshaw reiterated the reason overnight to Polygon: "With the way that the game works, we offload a significant amount of the calculations to our servers so that the computations are off the local PCs and are moved into the cloud," she said. "It wouldn't be possible to make the game offline without a significant amount of engineering work by our team."
In an internal memo sent to Maxis employees, and made public Thursday, Bradshaw claimed that while "thousands of players across the world are playing and having a good experience," many others were unable to connect to the game, so "the rollout in North America has been challenging." She promised Maxis would be adding capacity to its SimCity cadre of servers and stabilizing the existing ones. "We're working as hard as possible to make sure everyone gets to experience the amazing game we built in SimCity," she wrote. SimCity, as of publication time, is still crippled for most who want to play it.
Maxis explains what went wrong with SimCity and what the developer is doing to fix it [Polygon]
Welcome to the Best of Kotaku, where I round up all of this week's best content.
I'm back from vacation (with a slight tan and a cold) and ready to unleash this pretty, wooden Atari 2600 at you. It's currently running for $1.2k on ebay. Or, if that's too much for you, you can always just look at extra pictures of the thing on Ian Brooks' Tumblr, where I found the console, and read about it over on Game Sniped.
Now let's move on to reading this week's best content, courtesy of us.
Can't access SimCity? Lots of people can't. For lots of reasons. Kirk Hamilton takes a look at these. More »
Brian Ashcraft gives us side-by-side comparisons of these Pokémon changes. More »
Evan Narcisse has an interesting chat with Lord British, the man behind Ultima, who is coming back to making games. More »
Jason Schreier lets the numbers do the talking. More »
Superannuation uncovers more secrets about Amazon, Trion Worlds and more. More »
Stephen Totilo wonders how much the PS4 will help (or not) to evolve series like this one. More »
Mike Fahey knows there's plenty to love about SimCity, if only he could get to play more of it. More »
Toshi Nakamura rounds up what Japanese people's concerns and excitements for the PS4 are. More »
Patricia Hernandez explains why "addictive" isn't really all that much of a compliment to a game. More »
Owen Good finds this series holding strong. More »
Kirk reviews this Mass Effect 3 DLC that he considers a great chapter for the most diehard of fans. More »
Skip Cameron is pleasantly surprised by Fallout's treatment of Mormon culture. More »
Fahey gives us some tips before we dive into SimCity (if/when that happens). More »
Kirk, resident The Witcher nut, runs down what he wants to see out of the next title in the series. More »
Phil Owen interviews some video game writers to see what they do exactly, and how they do it. More »
Christopher Lawton shares his experience of letting go of a favorite hobby to make way for a new, shared life. More »
Evan enjoys the DmC extension, even if Vergil isn't as awesome as Dante in this DLC. More »
Jason enjoys the combat in this Castlevania, even if the game does have a few flaws. More »
Kirk ponders this odd ritual. More »
Patricia introduces her new weekly column. More »
Fahey tries all sorts of flavors. More »
Fahey shares the story of the rise and demise of his city, and how he killed Kotaku boss Stephen Totilo's city, too. More »
Stephen shares all the reasons we have to be excited about a new Assassin's Creed, and all the reasons we should remain skeptical for now. More »
Mike Rougeau tries out different methods of tackling Civ V. More »
Anyone who bought SimCity will get a free video game, publisher EA said tonight.
Apologizing for the crippling server issues that have rendered the new simulation game near-unplayable for the past week, Maxis boss Lucy Bradshaw wrote in a blog post that anyone with a copy of SimCity activated before March 18 will get a free PC game from EA's catalog.
Here's the full blog post:
Here's a quick update on the problems we were experiencing with SimCity – and a little something extra for people who bought the game.
The server issues which began at launch have improved significantly as we added more capacity. But some people are still experiencing response and stability problems that we're working fast to address.
So what went wrong? The short answer is: a lot more people logged on than we expected. More people played and played in ways we never saw in the beta.
OK, we agree, that was dumb, but we are committed to fixing it. In the last 48 hours we increased server capacity by 120 percent. It's working – the number of people who have gotten in and built cities has improved dramatically. The number of disrupted experiences has dropped by roughly 80 percent.
So we're close to fixed, but not quite there. I'm hoping to post another update this weekend to let everyone know that the launch issues are behind us.
Something Special for Your Trouble
The good news is that SimCity is a solid hit in all major markets. The consensus among critics and players is that this is fundamentally a great game. But this SimCity is made to be played online, and if you can't get a stable connection, you're NOT having a good experience. So we're not going to rest until we've fixed the remaining server issues.
And to get us back in your good graces, we're going to offer you a free PC download game from the EA portfolio. On March 18, SimCity players who have activated their game will receive an email telling them how to redeem their free game.
I know that's a little contrived – kind of like buying a present for a friend after you did something crummy. But we feel bad about what happened. We're hoping you won't stay mad and that we'll be friends again when SimCity is running at 100 percent.
SimCity is a GREAT game and the people who made it are incredibly proud. Hang in there – we'll be providing more updates throughout the weekend.
While we're not yet sure which games will be given away, you can view EA's PC catalog here.
Sure, pranks are things jerks often do—but sometimes, things can get genuinely mean. And there's really no other way to describe this supercut of cruel wake up pranks, where people find the most awful ways to get people to rise from their slumber.
Despite how mean the video often is (if not dangerous, and arguably stupid at times), it's funny—even if I winced often. Good compilation, clipnationdotcom.
Ah, another weekend. Do you guys have plans? I'm gonna hunker down and try to finish a couple of books, because my backlog there is starting to rival my games backlog! That, and I'll probably spend plenty of time with Tomb Raider as well as a different game I'm reviewing soon. Fun stuff.
Feel free to talk about jerks, pranks, weekend plans, or just about anything else here in this open thread or over in the Talk Amongst Yourselves forum.
See you next week!
The Ultimate Wake Up PRANK Compilation [clipnationdotcom]
At South By Southwest in Austin, Gearbox debuted a teaser trailer that hints at the addition of a new character to Borderlands 2. The character isn't fully shown, but looks to be some sort of melee-focused badass.
The video above comes via Polygon, who are on the ground at SXSW.
"A new vault hunter is coming," the teaser video promises. What do you think? Think it'll be a return of Brick-style brawling? I'd be in, but then again, I've barely even managed to mess around with the last downloadable character, the Mechromancer.
Without medi-gels—the life-saving healing salves in Mass Effect—our Commander Shepards would be toast. Out in the real world, though, we can't just apply medi-gel to our injuries: it doesn't exist. Or well, it didn't, not like this. Not until recently.
According to Mother Nature Network, Joe Landolina, a college student at NYU, has invented something called "Veti-Gel." Apparently it speeds up the clotting and healing process, enough that "even wounds to internal organs or major arteries are able to close up instantaneously."
Look at this video to see it in action (unless you're squeamish; there's a ton of blood). It's insane.
"I have seen [Veti-Gel] close any size wound that it is applied to," Landolina says. "As long as you can cover it, it can close it."
The article has more claims about Veti-gel's incredible properties, including the ability to heal second-degree burns in a day. Even more uncanny is the fact that they sometimes do call Veti-Gel medi-gel.
If you're curious, this is what medi-gels do according to the Mass Effect wiki:
Heals various wounds and ailments, instantly sealing injuries against infection and allowing for rapid healing by having the gel grip tight to flesh until subjected to a frequency of ultrasound. It is sealable against liquids - most notably blood - as well as contaminants and gases.
By contrast, Veti-Gel:
When any part of the body is wounded, the damaged extracellular matrix helps trigger a cascade of chemical reactions in the blood that ends in fibrin - fibers that join togehter to start blood clots.
If Veti-Gel reaches the blood's platelet cells, it helps signal them to change shape and stick together to further help plug the hole in a blood vessel. [See also: Artificial Blood Clots to Improve Soldier Survival]
And when Veti-Gel comes into contact with the extracellular matrix in the wounded tissue, it binds to it, forming a kind of cover over the area. That eliminates the need to even apply pressure to the wound. "It looks like, feels like, and acts like skin," said Landolina.
Veti-gel still has to go through the FDA, but even so, damn. Every day, we come a little bit closer to the future depicted in sci-fi like Mass Effect, people.
College student invents gel that halts bleeding [Mother Nature Network Via Ann Lemay]
After about seven hours with Tomb Raider, I'm on board with Evan's endorsement. It's a very good game, and a strong example of the whole "game that's like a movie" thing that Uncharted laid out a few years back. But what of the PC version?
I've been putting it through its paces, and can happily report that it's a strong port, albeit with some stray rough edges that will hopefully be ironed out in the near future. The PC port was handled by Nixxes, the same people responsible for the great PC versions of Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Sleeping Dogs, among others. Like those games, the PC version of Tomb Raider comes with all manner of expected PC customization options, and it runs well.
I'm using a rig with an Intel i5 2.8GHz CPU, 8GB of RAM and a GeForce 660Ti graphics card, and have been able to get the game running pretty smoothly on "Ultra" settings. That means the framerate hits 60FPS a lot of the time, but slows to 45-50 when I'm in some of the bigger outdoor areas.
The game carries the AMD brand, and it seems like it's got some issues with Nvidia cards. That's mostly manifested itself in the constant crashing I experienced, which I fixed by toggling off tessellation, but which can apparently also be fixed by rolling back your drivers. I've also had a strange visual freak-out happen during a rainstorm shootout where suddenly, I was subjected to kaleidoscopic visual glitching. Restarting the game fixed it, but even the main menu was totally glitched and unviewable, meaning I had to use the arrow keys and some guesswork to get myself to the "Quit game" option.
There are other bugs as well, and at least one Kotaku reader has reported the game being entirely unplayable on his 660Ti. There's also this video that Patricia found, which shows one of the game's most harrowing sequences playing out with a weird invisible-woman Lara. Eep.
But really, those kinds of bugs have been the exception, not the rule. The PC version also has a helpful benchmarking feature that lets you test out your various settings and get a feel for the FPS range you'll see. It seems a bit conservative with its verdict, but that's ok.
Another (very small) thing that nonetheless bugged me: It's too difficult to quit the game, largely because the in-game "quit to menu" option isn't at the bottom of the list as usual, but the middle:
Kinda weird. A small thing, but one I noticed. Mostly because, of course, it breaks one of the ten commandments of video game menus. In fact, there are three steps between the game and your desktop—the quit to menu click, an "are you sure" pop-up, and an additional quit game command in the menu. Yes, these are the tiny things that bug me. (Note: It turns out you can hit Alt+F4 and get a quit-to-desktop prompt. That's a nice option to have, though it doesn't make the menu placement any less strange and doesn't help you out if you're playing on a TV with a controller.)
Enough about menus. Let's talk about hair! One of the features exclusive to the PC is the humorously named "TressFX" which AMD describes as "a new frontier of realism in PC gaming" and which I describe as "kind of weird-looking."
Here's a video of TressFX in action on my computer:
AMD is responsible for TressFX, and I'm running an Nvidia card, so I can't say whether it looks better on an AMD card. Though the official demo video looks about the same as it looks on my PC. Really, it just kind of looks like the Apachii Sky Hair mod for Skyrim. The hair is weird, and I vastly prefer Lara's ordinary ponytail. Plus, it causes my performance to take about a 10FPS hit, so it's not really worth it.
(And actually, when I think about it... does the way Lara's TressFX hair looks make any sense? It kinda doesn't. After all, she clearly has a hair thingy (official term), so why on earth doesn't she fix that mess at every campsite to keep it out of her face? This seems like an example of putting tech over realism, in a game that makes its bones on verisimilitude. Again, tiny thing. I digress.)
Last point to mention: Controls. I've been playing the game on my TV with a controller for the most part. I tested out the mouse/keyboard controls and find that while they're fine, the game feels like it was designed with a controller in mind.
The cinematic Quicktime events in particular just don't work all that well on the keyboard—for example, an early one has Lara scrambling up an incline to escape a cave. On a controller, players use the triggers, which feels like an approximation of the act of scrambling. On PC, it's the left and right keys, which don't feel as good and also make it confusing when players have to dodge left and right to avoid oncoming rocks.
There's also the problem Patricia pointed out where the game shows you the quicktime prompt in one place but tells you which button to press in another. That's confusing, and I've seen a ton of people getting stuck on the various QTEs. Which is also a drag because often, if you fail a QTE, you're rewarded with a grisly, graphic death sequence. Not the kind of thing you want to watch 15 times while you try to figure out which button to press.
But those (mostly small) shortcomings aside, the PC version of Tomb Raider is a strong port. And Nvidia is working on a fix for the issues with their cards, so it's likely that it'll get more stable for Nvidia users sometime soon. Even as it stands, despite a few stray hairs, Tomb Raider's PC version matches the quality of the game itself.
Want to know what it's like to be unfamous Kotaku mobile editor Michael Fahey for a week? Play around 30 gaming apps across three platforms while attempting to connect to SimCity in order to write a review of a game that you assure everyone will think is pretty good once they can connect to it. Also write some tips, and cry a lot. Oh, and the PC you're reviewing SimCity on has one of these attached to it.
Did I mention I am moving next weekend, and have added more things to my current residence this week than I've actually packed? It's been one of those weeks that make me respond to "Oh you write about video games for a living? That must be so much fun!" with cutlery.
Honestly it's not so bad. I get to play some amazing games (see below), and I get to do it while I'm close to my children, but not close enough to strangle them. It's a good life. You should try it. Let me know where to mail the kids.
Chip Chain — Free [also on iOS]
A challenging combination of match game and strategy game. Match numbered poker chips and they merge into one of the next highest number. It's combo-riffic.
Marbelous! — $.99
(Not to be confused with Marbelous without the exclamation point) This is a pretty little puzzle platform adventure, featuring a ball with more character than many human characters.
Rivals at War — Free [also on iOS]
Belie3ve it or not, this is a collectible card game. Players purchase boosters and build a deck that represents a military squad, and then battles play out real-time in 3D. I can see in-app purchases becoming an issue here, but the concept is very cool.
God of Blades — $.99 [also on iOS for $2.99]
The ridiculously good sword-combat running game is now on Android, and it's only $.99 — $2.00 less than iOS. Go, Android!
Dojo Danger — $.99
Now here's a unique game. It's zombies vs. ninja using marbles on a tabletop laced with traps. A truly unique turn-based strategy game.
Melodive — $.99
An incredibly trippy diving/flying game that you need to keep in your pocket for the next time you make bad decisions at a party.
Meltdown — $1.99
This one's incredibly cool. You're a Russian scientist with the power of teleportation, tasked with trapping roaming monsters in special warp gate dealios. Very tricky puzzles in this one, and a really groovy style.
Journey to Hell — $3.99
Whoa, where'd this one come from? A gorgeous 3rd person shooter with a real Painkiller vibe to it. You can expect more on it next week.
Color Heroes — Free
A delightful little platformer starring a painting monkey. The controls are really odd — tap a side to move in the direction and the opposite to jump, switch when changing directions — but it's cute enough to power on through.
Outland Games — $.99
It's an endless runner set in the Monday Night Combat universe, complete with annoying=as=hell announcer! Fun runner, the announcer can die in a fire.
The Ories — Free
It took me awhile to figure out the name of this cute and shiny physics puzzler. Read it again. Get it? Lovely game.
Liberation Maiden — $4.99
SUDA51's awesome downloadable 3DS shooter comes to iOS, and it's so good. Touch screen controls are a little tricky, but I dare you to find a better sci-fi game starring the female president of New Japan anywhere.
Plenty of video games have toyed with a desolate future in which an extinction level event has wiped humanity from the face of the Earth. The Silent Age isn't about the future. More »
Aw, look at the little bear. Isn't he cute? Oh my god he's got a little scarf. And look, he's followed around by colorful fireflies. I bet his game is as light and fluffy as his widdle ears. More »
I contend that one of Square Enix's finest acquisitions in 2009's take-over of Eidos Interactive was the six miniature trained killers of 2009's action-adventure, Mini Ninjas. More »
When Sega's Hardlight Studio released Sonic Jump last year, I shook my head. Jumping is not the ability Sonic the Hedgehog is known for. This week Hardlight has released endless runner Sonic Dash on iOS. More »
It's been a huge week for mobile running games. There's a new Temple Run that's tied to Disney's Oz: The Great and Powerful. Mini Ninjas went for a jog, Sonic the Hedgehog busted out time-tested moves, and the Monday Night Combat folks launched the Outland Games. More »